Northside's teams will be taking part in an unusual home-and-home series this week against Bryant.

Today's game in Bryant was originally scheduled for Jan. 6, but was postponed due to winter weather. Then, Bryant turns right around and will travel to Northside on Friday to face the Lady Bears and Grizzlies to open the second half of 7A-Central play.

"It's like an NBA schedule, it's a little different," Lady Bear coach Rickey Smith said. "I can honestly say in my entire coaching career we've never played a team back-to-back."

With last Friday's win against Southside, the Lady Bears (11-8, 4-2) won their third straight and remain in the hunt for the conference title. Currently, they share third place with Conway, two games back of first place Little Rock Central and a game back of North Little Rock for second place.

NLR and Central will both play each other home-and-home this week as well.

If the Lady Bears can get by Bryant (3-15, 0-6) today, Smith said he will gladly take a 5-2 mark at the midway point of the conference schedule. Plus, Smith added it gets Northside even closer toward garnering another appearance at the 7A State Tournament.

"That's excellent; it really is," he said. "Those two losses were to Conway at Conway and then (Little Rock) Central at Central, and they're ranked second.

"To me, I think you've got to have about seven wins to make the playoffs, and so if we can get two wins this week, it'll pretty much assure us of a trip back to the playoffs. For me, that would be 23 straight times here at Northside of being in the playoffs and two before that at Stamps, so 25 straight years and that would be quite an accomplishment, but our team has bigger aspirations than that."

The Grizzlies also attempt to finish their first half of 7A-Central play at 5-2.

Northside (13-6, 4-2) currently is in a three-way tie for second with Cabot and Little Rock Central, a game back of leader North Little Rock. Bryant (14-5, 3-3) is tied for fifth place with Conway.
